Posted on 08/17/2003 10:40:51 AM PDT by prairiebreeze
JERUSALEM, Aug. 16 Israel has relented on one of its core demands on the Palestinian leadership, backing away for now from its insistence that the men it regards as wanted terrorists be held under lock and key in Palestinian prisons, Israeli and Palestinian officials said today.
Instead, Israel has accepted in principle the assurances of Muhammad Dahlan, the Palestinian minister of security, that he will monitor the wanted men in the cities where they now live and prevent them from mounting attacks, the officials said.
That would represent a less aggressive strategy than the immediate "dismantlement" of terrorist infrastructure that Israel has sought. Bush administration officials had indicated that they would accept for now the milder Palestinian approach, which amounts to containment and, perhaps, assimilation into mainstream society.
Palestinian officials said the agreement cleared the way for an effective amnesty for wanted men who abandon violence.
The details of the agreement are to be completed in a meeting on Sunday between top security officials from both sides. Officials cautioned that it could still fall apart.
A final agreement would appear to reflect the most significant change in the largely static negotiating postures of the two sides since President Bush (news - web sites) began this peace effort more than two months ago.
A senior Israeli official said that in making the concession over militants it considers guilty of conducting or planning mass murders, Israel was seeking to sustain a peace effort that appeared in danger of collapsing, especially with two suicide bombings this week. "No one really wants the alternative, which would be a breakdown in the cease-fire and a return to the suicide bombings neither on our side or the Palestinian side," he said. "It's a choice by default, I think."
He said the agreement would take away from Mr. Dahlan any pretext to blame Israel for any new violence. "We don't want to give them any chance for an excuse to say, `It was because you were preventing us,' " the official said.
He said he did not expect that the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon (news - web sites), would come under anything more than pro forma criticism from his political right for the concession. He said the decision was reversible if violence resumed. "If they fail, we can tell them, `It didn't work; let's do it our way,' " he said.
The Israeli concession was crucial to a deal reached late this week for Israel to return policing responsibility to the Palestinians for two more West Bank cities, Jericho and Qalqilya. Mr. Dahlan had previously rejected that offer, first made late last month, as insufficient. The details of that transfer are also to be discussed in the meeting on Sunday.
Palestinian officials confirmed the deal on wanted men, while saying they had promised not to disclose it first. They said the agreement meant that wanted men would no longer be sought by Israel for arrest or so-called directed killings, and that they could remain with their families and be offered jobs with the Palestinian Authority (news - web sites) to encourage them to abide by the cease-fire.
"In practical terms, they have been pardoned by the Israelis," one official said. Mr. Dahlan is expected to provide the Israelis with a detailed report on how he will monitor the suspects.
The agreement appeared to apply only to areas under Palestinian security control, which for now include the Gaza Strip (news - web sites) and Bethlehem, in the West Bank.
Mr. Dahlan and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian prime minister, had been particularly concerned about how to control members of Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, a violent group connected to the mainstream Fatah (news - web sites) faction of Mr. Abbas and Yasir Arafat, the Palestinian leader.
Members of the group had feared that Mr. Abbas and Mr. Dahlan intended to sell them out to the Israelis, Palestinian officials said. Particularly active in the northern West Bank, they have been responsible for most of the attacks on Israelis since June 29, when the main Palestinian factions, including Fatah, agreed to suspend violence for three months.
The Palestinian leadership received a lesson from the group at the beginning of the month. Mr. Arafat assembled some 20 wanted militants who had sought refuge from Israeli soldiers in his Ramallah compound and told them he was sending them to detention in Jericho. Israel had previously insisted that all wanted men be held by the Palestinians in Jericho, a relatively quiet city.
But the militants refused to go, and Mr. Arafat, the pre-eminent Palestinian leader, backed down.
Israel chose to soften its demands regarding wanted men after the first two suicide bombings in more than a month killed two Israelis on Tuesday, and officials on both sides feared that a period of relative calm was coming to an end. Responsibility for one of the bombings was claimed by Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, while the claim for the other was by Hamas, which said it was retaliating for an Israeli military raid that killed two Hamas members.
On Thursday, Israeli forces in Hebron killed a local commander of Islamic Jihad, another violent group. Islamic Jihad has vowed to avenge the killing with a specific attack, while insisting it remains committed to the broader cease fire. Palestinian security officials said they would try to prevent any violence by the group.
The agreement on wanted men eased the way for Mr. Dahlan to accept control of Jericho and Qalqilya. Palestinian officials had previously derided that offer, saying that Israel had no military presence in Jericho and that Qalqilya was surrounded by an Israeli barricade.
To sweeten the proposal, Israel has agreed to withdraw by the end of the month from Ramallah and Tulkarm, also in the West Bank, provided the cease-fire holds and Mr. Dahlan's approach to containing the wanted men works.
The presence of the wanted men in Mr. Arafat's compound has been a major sticking point in the talks over Ramallah. Israel had feared withdrawing with those men at large, accusing one of them of planning a double suicide-bombing attack.
A top aide to Mr. Arafat, Nabil Aburdeineh, criticized the proposed transfer of cities, saying Israel should withdraw from a big Palestinian city like Hebron or Nablus. Mr. Arafat had cautioned Mr. Abbas that the Palestinian leadership should not insist on a withdrawal from Ramallah, where it is based, so that Palestinians would not think their leaders were putting their own needs first.
Mr. Aburdeineh said Mr. Arafat was still weighing an Israeli offer, made at Mr. Dahlan's request, to permit the Palestinian leader to make a quick trip to Gaza to the grave of his sister, who died this week. "It's not enough to say that President Arafat can go to Gaza," Mr. Aburdeineh said. "What if they kept him there?" He said the Palestinians wanted assurances from the Bush administration and Arab states that Mr. Arafat could return.
Mr. Arafat, whom Israel has trapped in his ruined compound for more than a year, did not request permission for a trip to Gaza, Israeli officials said. Mr. Dahlan and Mr. Abbas are always careful in negotiating with the Israelis to make requests on Mr. Arafat's behalf, lest they be seen as ignoring or undermining him.
Now, if Mr. Arafat refuses to make the trip, that could be seen as an implicit criticism of Mr. Dahlan's negotiations. Mr. Dahlan met in Ramallah with Mr. Arafat today.
Israeli and American officials have been seeking to strengthen Mr. Abbas and Mr. Dahlan. But Mr. Abbas was not even in the country when the new security deal was struck. After the suicide bombings on Tuesday, he said he would cut short a trip to Arab states to return. But he did not do so.
Big whoop. And will they also monitor and prevent the "associates" of these wanted men so THEY don't attack Israeli's?? There is no logic in any of this.
Prairie
Bwahahahahahahahaha turning loose murderers and terrorist back to "their" refuge....
"From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime" President G.W. Bush
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